


it's a shock to your soft side

by valkyrierising



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5 + 1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 06:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8568412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyrierising/pseuds/valkyrierising
Summary: Of course it clicks after she’s got him in a hug that she remembers he’s not a touchy person, reminded of his confusion when she put her hand on his leg when he told Gabe about how he had died. or, five times that daisy touched robbie and one time he touched her back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from yeah yeah yeah's 'soft shock'

i.

 

All things considered, they come back in one piece. It’s a hell of a long shot, and far too much unexplained bullshit - reports about a portal in New York among a dozen other places in the world is a problem for another day - but they come back. Along with Jemma, Mack and Melinda, she rushes towards Coulson and Fitz without abandon, relief flooding as Coulson catches her easily with a small ‘oof.’ She pries herself from him, looking to Robbie. Lowering himself to Gabe’s wheelchair, they exchange the briefest of nods as the brothers hold each other.

 

Director Mace is extraordinarily pissed but that seems to be his current state of being; he seems to hold an especially grim stare for Jemma who doesn’t do anything beside level her stare back at him. The Bus team have never been the strictest rule followers, plus the new crew of the Zephyr are a bit terrified of each of them that they tend to go along with the plans. Daisy smiles as she’s filled with joy, tampers down the emotion as she remembers what it’s like to be back here. She can’t begin to make amends for what she’s done, and she doesn’t ever want to forget those who gave their life for her, but this was her home. It felt right being back. Mack and Jemma didn’t let her go for a while whereas Melinda gave her a tighter hug than normal before disappearing to make sure Coulson wasn’t wounded horribly.

 

She doesn’t trust herself to lead the secret warriors though - more of a loss of faith in herself as a leader, fearful that she could snap and harm them like Hive almost made her do. She loves too deeply, it’s always been something of a fatal flaw - caring too damn much about the world. She made her place helping others and the years in retrospect seemed more warning signs towards her future.

 

It’s a big comfort though that she was able to help bring them back, putting the quake abilities to the best of her abilities to widen an astral rip the portal had opened. Robbie, Fitz and Coulson came back safely - Robbie himself would still be here for Gabe. Even though Gabe wasn’t talking to Robbie following the revelation of him as the Ghost Rider, they were all each other had left. It was clearly going to take more than Robbie’s forced vanishing act to fix what had been unraveled, but Gabe couldn’t deny he was grateful his older brother seemed alive.

 

Director Mace still berated them something fierce, like a cross between a disappointed father and an extraordinarily pissed school principal. The team had, in his own words, blatantly flouted the rules and didn’t trust each other and how could they get anywhere with that?  

 

“With all due respect sir, but we got screwed _as a team_ ,” she can’t help but snark back, not looking up from a file Mack had passed to her earlier. There’s a silence that falls through the room that forces her to look up. A small smile and a smirk on Coulson and Melinda’s faces told her that clearly someone hadn’t responded like this with the Director. The speaking in motivational posters was something she had only heard from Jemma when she ‘took her hostage’ but she just thought Jemma was being prickly towards him. Unfortunately, it was a reality and hearing six minutes of that was starting to play on her last nerve. Mace fixes her with a glare before leaving the room, the breath the room had been holding released. She doesn’t pay attention to them, eyes on Robbie’s presence, who’d taken a corner to himself. He was smirking the tiniest bit, arms folded as she ducked. Embarrassment and a little bit of pride sparks up inside her as she ducks her head.

 

“He has a point,” Jemma breathes out, looking at Daisy with fond exasperation. Fitz and her had flanked her as soon as she sat down. She had missed her science duo, everyone really, but the brainiacs especially. They who had loved her so unconditionally when she first joined were close to her heart, family in the truest sense.

 

“He wasn’t in a ghostly dimension so he can shove it,” Fitz mutters while she squeezes his thigh in consolation.

 

“We really need to stop getting stranded in god knows where places” Mack adds, filling their side of the table with an arm around Fitz’s shoulders and brushing Daisy’s shoulders with his knuckles.

 

“Yeah I’ll keep that in mind,” Fitz snarks in return, arms folding while Mack chuckles. Robbie moves to get out. She follows him out, not noticing that Melinda’s tracking them.

 

She’s never been a shy person, incredibly tactile. The years since she joined SHIELD, the tactility of holding of teammates after they came back from missions were ingrained into her muscles is reflexive - she rushes towards Robbie and holds him. Of course it clicks _after_ she’s got him in a hug that she remembers he’s not a touchy person, reminded of his confusion when she put her hand on his leg when he told Gabe about how he had died. She pulls away quickly, opting to punch him lightly on the arm to diffuse an incredibly awkward situation

 

“I’m really glad you’re back. And I should apologize about dragging you into my mess,” she holds a hand up to gesture to the room they came out.

 

“We were bound to meet up somewhere,” he shrugs in response, wondering at the feeling of her tight grip like she was almost _grateful_  he was still alive. How long had it been since he’d let someone other than Gabe willingly touch him, before he began to hold himself at a distance from others? The fear of snapping and letting the other guy take over held him back like cautionary tape. The two years since he’d died and returned where he held himself tightly, like a bomb that could go off as he passed through the time like it was amber, too long and far too short for him. It’s an odd sensation, being wanted, someone being thankful that he’s alive.

 

“Partners?” She extends a hand to him, and he takes it because it’s about time he put the Ghost to do some good.

 

“Partners,” he responds, saving the memory of her slender hands against his.

 

 

 

ii. 

 

 

The director stations them back down in Los Angeles, letting Coulson take the reigns with them. It feels weird to be a part of a team, to report back to someone else. The ghost still whispers, the need to enact justice always present but it calms down just slightly. It’s easier to control with a direction beyond the broad scope of getting retribution. They’re a hard group to warm up too, only used to working by himself but they’re a good group. Mack is a little bit weirded out but he trusts him, slightly. And he trusts Daisy to have his back; they’re clearly a deadly duo that have worked together they work instinctively that they’re good backup. There’s another girl that drops by, Elena, who he feels is something of another lifeline.

 

“Esté es el hombre de venganza y fuego?” She asks, leaning up against the car that he’s under at.  

 

“El único,” rolls off his tongue quickly, watches as she smirks when Daisy looks up to them, head cocked. She barely looks up at Elena before her face schools into something like a warning at the other woman

 

“Stop,” she warns. Elena has something of a manic look in her eye, words exchanging in the increasingly stern looks Daisy to Elena’s raised eyebrows. It culminates in a cackle from Elena, hands clapping as she throws two fingers at Robbie in an almost salute before she goes to Mack in a blink, leaves kicking up in her wakes. Daisy rolls her eyes as she looks at him, raising a shoulder in a shrug.

 

“She’s another one of your … inhumans?” He asks flexing his hand in his glove, getting up from under the car he brought from Canelo’s to fix at home. She nods in response, gestures to him to come towards the laptop.

 

“Are they?” He points back to them as Elena says something that causes Mack to look to the side.

 

“Together? Why? Do you want a shot?” she grins slightly, pushing the laptop towards him. He can’t help but give her a ‘seriously’ look as she rolls her eyes.

 

“No but they so want to,” she says, waving him to sit down. She presses against his side the slightest as she points to multiple programs running and he’s not sure if it’s intentional or not but he doesn’t think he wants it to stop. Her touch imprints on his memory, a branding he doesn’t want to get rid of.

 

“Well your uncle can literally create dark matter which means that it’s going to fuck with the universe right? I  tweaked another one of my programs with Fitz’s help to detect when the energy levels around the area when the photons that dark matter is needed spikes up.”

 

“How will it work?” He asks. Daisy’s painfully aware that this is the first time he isn’t wearing the jacket, his arms exposed, shining slightly in beating sun that still touches her shaded area. The shirt sticks obscenely tight to him, riveted by the droplet of water that run past his mouth from the bottle he’s drinking. She only now realizes that she’s got her leg right up against his, pulls away slightly to return back to focus and continues her explanation.

 

“Dark matter is basically everything so tracking it is hard but it’s the photons it creates in the moment are something that we can track, since there’s a spike around them before they become what we know as everything. I got Jemma and Fitz to help set up something similar back in the Zephyr so hopefully we’ll have eyes everywhere.”

 

He nods, not wanting to leave but uncertain of what they are to each other - the kinship he feels towards her. She makes the choice for him, getting up but not before brushing up against his shoulder as she goes.

 

 

 

iii.

 

 

Daisy’s something of a phenomenon, her skill unprecedented. It could be that she was a secret agent, or that she knew how to play people. It’s a skill he can see being useful, watching as she construct a happy, bubbly, self. He only knows her now, how she carries herself - fearless against the world and still walking the line with her team. She’s a leader to the core but she takes the backseat more often than not, sticking to him and deferring to Mack when dealing with SHIELD business.

 

Gabe was always the more personable one out of the two of them. While he used to smile and laugh, it’s not as easy easy anymore - dying was a bucket of cold water on everything else. He probably had some kind of post traumatic shit he’d heard as most people assumed him dying was a near death and not an actual thing. He focused on getting by, enacting vengeance, keeping a lid on his anger, the rest of his emotions suppressed in the meanwhile. She’s like a mirror though, but there’s no judgement. He tells himself it’s because they don’t want unnecessary deaths on their organization with the Ghost Rider as a field asset but he sees how she looks two seconds from knocking the director down when he looks at him askance.

 

It’s a strange feeling.

 

She spins cover stories out of thin air, a façade she sells as a lost and confused ditz with him as her boyfriend. Her touch is practically new to him all the damn time, hyper awareness of her hand in his, his other on her hip. If they tried anymore, she would be pressed flush up, twining up against him like a vine. She passes a look to him that would almost be … love. He’s not sure what she sees him that would remind him of the man in the photograph but it feels like a particular deep cut knowing that no one could hold a candle to her mystery man. He’s grateful that this is just a cover, takes what he can get.

 

They look at him warily and eye her like lions to a piece of meat before she wraps her other arm around his waist. He wraps his around her, letting her do the talking. They get the information they need easily, watching her still as they turn. The arm he has around her tightens as they walk back, watching as she taps something out on her phone.  

 

“Sorry about that,” she says when they’re getting back to the Charger. “The touch thing.” If the disentangling is slower than he would mention, he doesn’t say it but he knows that she takes care to respect the boundaries. Somehow, he can’t be assed to give a damn about how she completely destroyed his in the first place, made herself someone he gave a damn _about_.

 

“Does it bother you?” He opens the door, watches as she slowly stops.

 

“What does?”

 

“The killing.” He wants to know, genuinely, where she stood. Whereas Coulson had an agenda, he was perfectly willing to oversee some of their actions as long as it wasn’t excessive collateral. Daisy’s words still ring in his about not getting to decide who lives and who dies.  

 

“I can’t decide on that.” She says, leaning against the Charger. “You - Robbie Reyes. You’re good. I believe in that. The Ghost Rider whatever it’s not something you can control. It was either die or get possessed by some spirit where you could take back justice for something awful that happened to you. You don’t hurt people who don’t deserve it. I can’t judge because I don’t even know what I would do, but it’d probably do the same. We all have our reasons for doing what we do.”

 

He looks at her, eyes wide and sad and full of understanding. She doesn’t lie - omits things with the Director - but she’s never lied to him since they had their first meeting.

 

They get in the Charger quietly, pausing for the briefest when she puts her hands over his on the stick shift. Lip between her teeth, she looks like she wants to do something, move closer, but she pulls back. He still feels her linger on him, guns it back home trying to think of anything but that.

 

 

  
  
iv.

 

 

She shoves him out of the way with her elbow and her abilities against these watchdog people before she redirects those powers to them. His own fury astounded at hers as he truly sees something that would strike fear into someone when the other guy was the Ghost Rider. She creates a radius around her, stepping closer towards the watchdogs before she clocks one out clean and swivels to meet one trying to overpower her.

 

There’s a chain nearby that he grabs, swings towards the three that were getting up from the pavement. There’s only kill, kill, kill in his head but he remembers what Daisy said about keeping collateral to a minimum so as Robbie, he tries to hold the Ghost back. Still, it’s a joy to hear nazis scream, bones snapping as he whips the chain with the man towards a wall. There’s a little bit of tinny, like water ringing from a glass rim as she uses her powers. It’s only worrisome before he teamed up with them, where they gave her things to help the powers and him some alternative weapons. The brunette scientist refusing to let Daisy use her powers or leave the plane without the gauntlets that could potentially break her bones. It’s more contained now, less of a danger to her now than it was before.

 

The burning subsides, the reins handed back to him as they watch the wreckage around them. He walks towards her as she turns back, hair blowing slightly as she looks for him.

 

“Thanks for having my back,” she says breathlessly, lip split again. He can’t help but hold her chin in his hands, brushing a finger towards her lip.

 

“You should be more careful.”

 

“As if,” she replies, not moving from the grip. She stares, moving the slightest bit closer until they hear the sound of someone (Elena) whoosh back to them.

  
“I can come back,” she says, wide grin as he pulls from Daisy, Daisy looking the other way at one of the men.

 

It’s not that he likes Daisy, he tells himself, it’s just that he feels she gets a little bit more reckless around him; whether it was safety thing she felt with him, or just the plain rush of the adrenaline, he feels the need to make sure she doesn’t do anything incredibly dangerous. And while she looked good, it caused him to wince at the more visible bruises on her. She carried them like battle scars and she wasn’t fragile, could handle herself well but he worried. Sue him.

 

He turns back towards the Charger, leaving them alone. He misses Daisy hold a hand up at Elena, who cackles at interrupting the moment between them.  

 

 

 

v.

 

 

He drags her out of harm’s way this time, shielding her body with his as he tackles her from the path of the oncoming beast from a fucking _hell_  dimension because of course the ghost portal he was stuck in just a few weeks back wasn’t the only damn portal in the universe. No, now they had things that looked completely unfuckingreal. If he didn’t have the spirit of vengeance inside, he’d have thought it was some kind of hallucination.

 

The Ghost flamed down, patting down the stray brand of hair of hers that had caught fire as they coughed and groaned together

 

“God that fucking sucked,” she groans, nose pressed to his chest while he held onto her

 

“You alright?” He asks. Thankfully, from what he remembered from Mack’s yelling was that the hell beast was blind and charged forward so that meant it was their problem for the time being. The hell beast and others came in through a different portal, while his uncle stood a few distance. While the ground and Daisy is fine and all, he needs to finish this with Eli, who would cause untold destruction.

 

So once more he brings the Ghost Rider back into commission, and gets the chain that Mack had on hand as he gets ready. His uncle defied the laws of the universe but then again so did he, and if anyone had to bring him down, it had to be him.

 

He tries to cause up multiple portals to pop up, to throw him off his game but he feels a shaking come up from behind and surge towards his uncle to keep _him_  off balance. It’s all he needs to crack the chain, tie up Eli and his hands. The rest of Coulson’s people are able to show up (those that weren’t unfortunately sucked in by a different dimension portal) and grab Eli. He doesn’t know where they’ll take him, wonders about how to keep a man who can make dimensions out of nothing in one place.

 

He turns back to see Daisy nod at him grimly, following the rest of the agents back into the plane as they figured out what exactly the fuck they were going to do. Her running falters though, falling into step with him as they enter the plane. He doesn’t move from the loading area of the plane, the thrum of the engine white noise as he cracks his knuckles. She comes from a corner, motions to follow her towards the room where Director Mace and Coulson and Melinda are deciding on an outcome.  She extends a hand towards him when he feels his fists curl, wanting to hit something. He takes her hand, an anchor as they wait.

 

 

 

vi.

 

 

They leave him back in East L.A, the Zephyr camouflaged. There’s no fanfare, per his request, he just wanted to keep his head down low and help Gabe get through high school and preferably to one of the nicer colleges. Mace raises an eyebrow, and agrees, and he’s not sure where they had entered deals but knowing that financially Gabe would be set is a burden that he’s glad he doesn’t have to deal with. He goes down the team, smiles crookedly at Elena’s wink, the respectful nods from Coulson, Mack and Melinda as he gets down. The only person he doesn’t see is Daisy and he’s … bummed? Glad he doesn’t have to say goodbye?

 

He tosses the keys in his hand, thinking of a nice beer and sleeping the rest of the day off. He worked for Canelo’s long enough that they didn’t raise eyebrows at his disappearance but he didn’t realize how much he missed the mundanity of the setting, the feeling of satisfaction at fixing cars after the last few weeks. The toss of the keys falters in his hands when he looks up to the Charger, seeing her leaning against with her arms folded and a small smile.

 

“Daisy?” It comes out more as a question as he walks a little bit faster towards the Charger. Slightly faster.

 

“Hey,” she smiles softly, bags under her eyes. She’s wearing a dark green tank top, sans her leather jacket, the color a contrast from her longer sleeved reds and blacks and pops against the tawny brown of her skin. She looks lighter than she had in awhile, no longer held back by shadows. He feels the same, the Ghost no longer weighing him as much as it used to, getting a handle on it with the group. They don’t say much, inching slowly closer towards each other.

 

He’s not sure if he moves first or she does, but her lips are pressed against soft and tentatively. He’s been waiting for something like an opening, holds holds her tighter to him while  her arm snaking across his neck to pull him towards her. They pull tight against one another, a knot that can’t be undone.  They stay for a few minutes, tongues working in sync as they drown in each other. It feels like an eternity before they pull away

 

“If you need anything, you know who to call,” she says, pulling away from him. “Take care of yourself.”

 

He holds onto her hand as she turns to go, no longer uncertain of the touch. She turns back the slightest, a smile playing on her lips.

 

“I’ll call first,” she concedes. He can’t help but return the smile, squeezes her hand before she returns towards the Zephyr and he enters the Charger, watches her leave.


End file.
